The National Australia Day Council (NADC) is committed to the highest standards of ethical and accountable conduct.
The NADC is subject to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (Cth) (PID Act).
Broadly speaking, a disclosure is a ‘public interest disclosure’ (PID) if:
· it is made by a current or former public official;
· the information disclosed tends to show, or the discloser believes on reasonable grounds that it tends to show, one or more instances of ‘disclosable conduct’; and
· the disclosure is made to the person’s ‘supervisor’ or an ‘authorised officer’.
‘Disclosable conduct’ includes a wide range of wrongful conduct engaged in by an agency (as defined by section 73 of the PID Act) or by a public official in connection with his or her position as a public official. It includes but is not limited to conduct that contravenes a law, maladministration or abuse of public trust, or conduct that results in wastage of public money or property. Disclosable conduct also includes conduct by a public official that could, if proven, give reasonable grounds for formal misconduct action against the public official.
Under the PID Act, the NADC is required to prepare procedures for facilitating and dealing with public interest disclosures relating to the NADC. These procedures must:
· deal with the assessment of risks that reprisals may be taken in relation to those disclosures;
· provide for confidentiality of investigative processes; and
· comply with any standards in force under subsection 74(1) of the PID Act.
The NADC’s procedures for public interest disclosures can be found here.
Authorised Officers
For the purpose of the PID Act, the Principal Officer of the NADC is its Chief Executive Officer, Mark Fraser AO CVO (mark.fraser@australiaday.org.au), who is also its Authorised Officer. The CEO has also appointed the following officers to be Authorised Officers:
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Karen Wilson, Chief Operating Officer (COO), who can be contacted at karen.wilson@australiaday.org.au;
- Stepan Kerkyasharian, Chair of the Finance, Audit and Risk Management Committee, who can be contacted at Stepan.Keryasharian@australiaday.org.au.
More information
For more information, visit the PID Scheme page on the Commonwealth Ombudsman website.